10 years to go .... maybe, with a fair wind

Lauraebrad

12th April already - and April is certainly Apriling today switching between blue skies and showers with alarming frequency.  The small one is with his dad today and I have some hardcore pottering to do - catching up with myself after the delightful, but ultimately tiring, break over the Easter holidays.  

We had a delightful two night trip to a lovely youth hostel in the Yorkshire Dales this week.  It’s harder as the small one gets older as I’m sure he’d rather spend time with friends than me - but I was the only option available!  Under duress he did some walking with me, and we ate a lot of delicious food.  The hostel had catering which was really good, and we also cooked for ourselves some of the time.  I’m always on the look out for good ideas for foods to prepare away from home.  The winner this time (not ours sadly!) was a fancy looking foil dish of moussaka with garlic bread.  The room was booked during the YHA sale earlier this year, and despite all the food consumed, and the price of fuel to drive to the other end of Yorkshire it was still a good value break. 

Thinking about hostel cooking becomes all the more relevant as I’m currently in the process of booking the various legs of our summer holiday which is going to involve swinging through Switzerland and therefore a lot of very frugal supermarket eating by all accounts! 

In mortgage news, my building society app has recently been updated so that I can now see mortgage transactions - previously only the balance was shown. Now that I’m in much lower figures, and will be sending more OPs directly to the mortgage rather than saving them up to deliver in a lump sum, it’ll be motivating I think to see that number reducing quickly(ish) down.  Might set myself some mini challenges to add to my current regular OPs …

An unexpected expense (my fault for not thinking ahead) this month was new walking boots for the teenager.  Managed to get a good deal at G0 0utd00rs but need to offset that further.  Have just today managed to sell his old walking shoes on V1nted for £20 which is a good start, so think I’ll set a challenge to match that with other sales and / or pr0l1f1c before the credit card is due.

Thinking that the remainder of April will be relatively quiet post-holidays.  No birthdays to buy for, or occasions for eating out that I can think of.  So a couple of weeks frugality before next pay day - which will do me the worlds of good!

Hope everyone out there is having an excellent April.

South_coast

Your trips sound epic - I would happily come and be your child if your DS ever wants to swap 😀!

P.S. I love the idea of hardcore pottering

Lauraebrad

Ah thanks @South_coast ! I do love him dearly, but it is so freeing whenever I go on trips with friends to not feel like I'm having to coax them to pack their stuff / come for a walk / put their phone down ….

savingholmes

Laura - it's said we've spent 90% of the time we will with our kids by the age of 18… Scary thought. But given my DS is on the other side of the world it certainly feels true…

Well done on the holiday and memory making. Switzerland sounds like it will be awesome too.